Homelessness and rough sleeping webinars 2022-23

Introducing our third series of webinars

We launched our first series of webinars, shortly after local leaders received the letter asking them to convene a local coordination cell to plan and manage their response to COVID and rough sleeping involving the local authority (housing, social care and public health) and local NHS partners together and to urgently procure accommodation for people living on the streets.

We formed a cell across the South East with similar representation to support this and boosted an already existing homeless health network of housing and public health representatives with other local authority representatives, voluntary organisations, GPs, Homeless Health Services, NHS providers and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs)/Integrated Care System (ICS) representatives in the South East of England. This has continued throughout 2021-2022 as our second series of webinars.

Due to their ongoing popularity, we have now launched a third series of webinars to run throughout 2022-2023. You can watch the webinar recordings and find out more about each webinar topic below:

Webinar 32 – Focus on children and young people

A special focus scoping session on children and families in temporary accommodation. The aim of the scoping session was to:

Raise awareness of the recent report, the seven key areas and actions by the All Party Parliamentary Group into temporary accommodation
Understand the impact of a poor home environment on child mortality
Identify themes that can inform the content of a Framework for action, which will offer guidance to local systems

The objectives were to:

Hear from stakeholders about the issues facing children, young people and their families, experiencing or at risk of homelessness in the South East
Explore the challenges facing organisations and staff, and hear of examples of good practice and solutions
Discuss how, as a region, we can work together to influence and tackle the recommendations in the APPG report

Colleagues heard presentations from Sam Pratt and Emma Roe from Shared Health, on the All Party Parliamentary Group Report into temporary accommodation and from Nicola Munday, Child Wellbeing Professional and Lead for Learning from Child Deaths, from Surrey Heartlands ICS, who presented a local case study: Surrey child death review – acting on the learning by being a pilot for the national bundle of care for children and young people with asthma.

Webinar 31 – Focus on citizen children, young people and families

The webinar looks at the profound impact homelessness has on children and families. Emma Roe, from Shared Health explains her organisation’s work with children and families, and describes some of the issues the All-Party Parliamentary Group on temporary accommodation is seeking to change. Tanja Flint, highlights the work of health visitors, working with some of the most vulnerable families; and finally, Hannah Kirkbride, founder and CEO of Career Matters, inspires the meeting, sharing some of the experiences facing young care leavers. She highlights the importance of involving those with lived experience, to add value to organisational policies and practice.

Webinar 30 – Reducing Health Inequalities: Improving outcomes for people with multiple disadvantage in Surrey

Collette Le Van Gilroy, from Surrey County Council, describes the inspiring work of the county’s Changing Futures programme to improve the outcomes of people with multiple disadvantage.

Webinar 29 – Operation COURAGE – Veterans Mental Health and Wellbeing Service

Dr Adele Stevens, Principal Clinical Psychologist from Op COURAGE, outlines the main risk factors for veterans becoming homeless and explains some of the issues that affect veterans’ mental health and wellbeing. She shares what Op COURAGE can offer veterans, other organisations and professionals.

Webinar 28 – Tobacco harm reduction in homeless settings

Up to 82% of people who experience homelessness smoke, compared with around 14% of the wider general population. In this webinar, Dr Debbie Robson, senior lecturer in Tobacco Harm Reduction at King’s College, London, shares the challenges of reducing smoking amongst people who experience homelessness, explores what can be done and presents an overview of the recent and ongoing research in this area. There is also the opportunity to get involved in some of the research that is currently underway. Please note that a short segment at the start of this webinar was not recorded, and so the slide deck is included for reference as well.